Former City Manager Jim Bourey will stay in Newport News as he takes on a new job with North Carolina-based McGill Associates.

Bourey, who resigned from the city in March, emailed city department heads on May 30 to announce his news. The Daily Press obtained a copy of the email through a Freedom of Information Act request. Bourey said Friday that he started the new job May 30.

McGill Associates is an architectural and engineering firm, with six offices throughout North Carolina and one in Tennessee. It offers "multi-disciplined" services for civil, environmental and electrical engineering consulting needs, as well as planning and landscape architecture, and public finance services.

Bourey earned an architecture degree at North Carolina State University. He also has two master's degrees from Washington University in St. Louis, one of them in architecture and the other in urban design.

Bourey said that he will be McGill's director of management services, which means he'll be doing some consulting with local governments. He also will help the company expand into different markets, including Virginia and, in particular, Hampton Roads. McGill did not return a call for comment on Friday.

After a closed door Newport News city council meeting Tuesday morning it was announced that city manager Jim Bourey would resign his position.

After a closed door Newport News city council meeting Tuesday morning it was announced that city manager Jim Bourey would resign his position.

Bourey said his job could involve working on proposals to Newport News, but "there's nothing on the horizon" right now. He will stay in Newport News.

Bourey has worked in the private sector before. He was director of corporate development for North Carolina-based Elliott Davis LLC, an accounting and consulting firm, prior to becoming Newport News' city manager.

Bourey did not give a reason for his resignation in March. The City Council had called a special meeting to discuss the performance of a council appointee. That meeting happened after the Daily Press reported that the Peninsula Airport Commission, which oversees the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport, had quietly guaranteed a $5 million line of credit using state taxpayer funds in 2014 for the startup People Express Airlines. People Express went out of business and defaulted on the loan, and the airport used $4.5 million of taxpayer money to repay the lender, TowneBank. Bourey was an airport commissioner at the time. He resigned from the commission days before resigning as city manager.

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The Virginia Department of Transportation launched an audit after the Daily Press reports. Auditors released their findings last week, which show the state money was improperly used. Records obtained by the auditors show that Bourey was one of the key people who tried to secure financing for People Express.